The proliferation of GPS and other positioning methods in mobile phones, taxis, personal navigation devices and automobiles has resulted in an enormous amount of historic and real-time data, consisting of a latitude, longitude, time stamp, unique identifier, and associated metadata.
For example, location-based media (LBM) delivers multimedia directly to the user of a mobile device dependent upon their location. The media can be delivered to, or triggered within any portable wireless device that is location enabled and has the capacity to display audiovisual content. Media content is managed and organized externally of the device on a standard desktop or laptop. The mobile device can download formatted content with location coordinated triggers applied to each media sequence. As the location-aware device enters the selected area, the assigned media is triggered. The assigned media is designed to be of optimal relevance to the user in the context of the user's surroundings.
In addition to location based media, there are other back-end server systems that process sensor data in real-time, including GPS, Wifi, and other location data, for example, a taxi dispatch system, the air traffic control system, or RFID systems for tracking supply chains. All of these systems were built for a specific purpose, a specific kind of sensor, and provide limited and focused analysis relevant to the specialized system. Moreover, historical information and related geographic information is typically limited to the current time and place of the subject of interest.
There has not been a system employing methodologies to associate data based on the historical location record of an individual device or user and demographic data that may be associated with the locations in the historical location record of an individual user. Current location-based services do not allow for the detection of similarities between individuals or users based on location history, or location based demographic affiliations.